LogFAQs > #968223735

(This was the anime I alluded to a few days ago in post 165. It was one if the first few I ever watched years ago, and I remembered enjoying it a lot and really liking Taiga. I just finished rewatching it last night and... meh, it was okay I guess. Taiga fell out of my top 100 characters. Luckily I was able to find someone to replace her.)

125. Toradora
https://myanimelist.net/anime/4224/Toradora
Fall 2008 (25 episodes)
My Score: 6/10, MAL Score: 8.10/10
Best Character: Aisaka Taiga

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzOEMJSQRZU

Premise: Takasu Ryuuji has a face that terrifies his classmates and makes his crush on Minori seem hopeless. Then he forms a bond with Aisaka Taiga, a small girl with a big temper who happens to be Minori's best friend.

The Good: Toradora is a romance anime with occasional jokes but mostly drama. I recently rewatched it and it wasnt as good as I remembered, but there was still a lot to like. Both Taiga and Ryuuji are fun characters in different ways. Taiga is often short-tempered and attacking people in a slapstick manner, but she has lots of cute and shy moments too. Ryuuji is a good guy who always tries to help people and do the right thing, plus he's a clean freak which leads to lots of good jokes. When Taiga throws a trash can at a strange guy with a camera, Ryuuji can't help but clean it up. They both have a crush on the other's best friend, but the best part of Toradora is watching these two interact with each other.

The Bad: There was way, way more crappy melodrama in Toradora than I recalled, which dragged it down a lot for me. I'd mostly remembered the fun parts, like when Taiga was running for student council but didn't want to win so she promised to ruin the school for everyone and her campaign posters were like an evil dictator's propaganda. I'd forgotten that she was only doing that because of some dumb melodrama with Kitamura. Pretty much every character had one plot or arc that I hated. They all had good moments too, thankfully, so the bad parts didn't ruin the anime. While Toradora eventually limped its way to a satisfying conclusion, the final episode also had some gigantic problems that killed the anime's momentum.

Overall: Toradora has fun characters, especially Ryuuji and Taiga. When they're used well, it was often funny or heartwarming. Sadly, there are large swathes of this anime where no one is being used well and everything is just sad or infuriating. I didn't hate Toradora, so that puts it above a lot of other anime romances I've already ranked. I used to consider it one of the standouts in the genre, however, and after a rewatch this was a lot more average than I'd remembered.